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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24731362">someone like you (someone like me)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeisathingwithwings/pseuds/hopeisathingwithwings'>hopeisathingwithwings</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Consent, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, How Do I Tag, I just think Kylo had a lot on his plate, Non-Consensual Touching, Not Canon Compliant, Oral Sex, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Prostitution, Sharing a Bed, Smut, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, but just a bit, don’t worry I love Rey, eventually, is that a thing?, mentions of Kylo with other partners, prostitute to lovers, there will be smut</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:46:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,312</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24731362</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeisathingwithwings/pseuds/hopeisathingwithwings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“You aren’t like the others.”  He sees the endless parade of hazel-eyed beauties, the chestnut locks ripped from their neat three buns, ivory and sand colored gauzy fabrics—or alternatively tiny scraps of black lace—wrapped around smooth tan muscles, then disappearing onto the floor. “They all looked like Her.” His face—always unbearably expressive—betrays his internal struggle; relief, regret, resignation, and anger—always the unending tidal wave of anger. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” she replies, eyes trained on her bare feet. It isn’t clear what she’s sorry for—the lack of resemblance or the vast emptiness that led him to fuck woman after woman like they were Her.</p><p>“I hurt the last one. Is that why they sent you?” His black-gloved hands clench reflexively. Maybe as he remembers the throat he gripped a little too long, a little too hard. </p><p>Her gray eyes flick up, study him. “I think so. But no one wanted to say.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi all, this is my first go at fanfic, though I’ve been reading for a while! I would love to hear your thoughts, but I am super nervous about posting; be gentle with me 💜</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His first thought is that she’s somehow stumbled into the wrong room. She is all wide gray eyes and wild blond waves, a sea of hot discomfort boiling beneath her silence.</p><p>But she doesn’t seem particularly scared at the sight of him reclining against the massive black leather headboard, doesn’t apologize or cower, doesn’t scurry back through the door. She just stands there in her soft-looking blue sleep tank and matching shorts, fingers twisting at the hem of the latter, otherwise frozen in place. He could dip into her ocean of thoughts and know the answers to his questions immediately, but he lets the awkward quiet unravel between them instead, his curiously roused from the dark box where he keeps it locked most of the time. Playing with his food, his mother might have said.</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“They said I should come here,” she breathes into the silence, her words almost lost in the gentle whirr of the ventilation system.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh—yes,” is all he can manage as the pieces click together, and then, because he cannot help it, “You aren’t like the others.”He sees the endless parade of hazel-eyed beauties, the chestnut locks ripped from their neat three buns, ivory and sand colored gauzy fabrics—or alternatively tiny scraps of black lace—wrapped around smooth tan muscles, then disappearing onto the floor. “They all looked like Her.” His face—always unbearably expressive—betrays his internal struggle; relief, regret, resignation, and anger—always the unending tidal wave of anger.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’m sorry,” she replies, eyes trained on her bare feet. It isn’t clear what she’s sorry for—the lack of resemblance or the vast emptiness that led him to fuck woman after woman like they were Her.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I hurt the last one. Is that why they sent you?” His black-gloved hands clench reflexively. Maybe as he remembers the throat he gripped a little too long, a little too hard.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Her gray eyes flick up, study him. “I think so. But no one wanted to say.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She isn’t lying, which is different too.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They’re all liars, trying be someone they’re not, telling him what they think he wants to hear. Even the fucking is full of lies.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She’ll be the same.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He’s sulking now, which is not to say he hadn’t been sulking when she arrived, but his shoulders are even more hunched, his full lips even poutier, and she knows that this wasn’t what they’d had in mind when they sent her, that she’s already messed up. But she doesn’t know how to fix this, doesn’t even know what’s broken. So she stands, poised just on the precipice of stepping toward him, unable to move.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Are they paying you to stare at me?” he snaps abruptly, picking at her discomfort like a scab, relishing the way her pale skin reddens with his words. “Come here.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Crossing the room quickly, she takes the hand he offers, watching as her small fingers disappear into his massive grip, stomach flipping at the warm, almost bruising pressure. She’s still unsure of what comes next or rather how they get to the part that comes next; she doesn’t know how two clothed strangers become an intimate tangle of limbs and nakedness, had thought there was plenty of time to learn.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Maybe it starts with the way he tugs on her hand, bringing her tumbling against him, hands flailing against his broad, muscled chest as he settles her across thick thighs. Maybe it continues with the way his fingers trailup her bare thigh, sending electricity tingling across her skin, straight to the core of her. He isn’t gentle, like he’s punishing her for something, but still she can feel how the warmth pools between her legs, how an ache throbs there like a heartbeat.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Someone else would card their fingers through his long black hair, would press lips against the canyon-like scar bisecting one brow and cheekbone. Someone else would know how to answer his touches, how to give him what he’s paid for. She suddenly wishes she were anybody else.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">He feels her trembling beneath his hands and it only takes the lightest brush against her mind to feel the anxiety, the confusion. Over and over a keening, </span> <em><span class="s2">how do I do this, how do I do this, how do I do this?</span></em></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Is this the first time you’ve done this?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He means to ask if he’s her first client, but when nods slowly, eyes locked on some point in the middle of his chest, he instead catches glimpses of memories: a teenager whose awkward, ineffectual pawning left her confused and cold; the man in the cantina—breath reeking of whisky—who’d kissed her and thrust against her stomach until wetness spread through his pants, staining her dress; soft touches in the darkness, her own small fingers trying to capture what people said this was supposed to be like.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It extinguishes the anger in a way he hasn’t felt in more than a decade. Without it, he is too exposed, too uncertain, like a dog finally let off its chain who is suddenly afraid to leave its yard.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Then why are you here?” His breath brushes against her ear and she shivers, this time not from worry.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She draws a deep breath. She could hedge. She could tell half truths. Flatter. But she has never been one for pretty lies, having heard enough of them, having seen how they rip lives and families apart. “My mom owes some bad people money. More than she has.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“But why this?” He brushes the fingertips of one hand up her spine and back down again, careful to keep his voice soft, wondering if this is where she’ll fail him.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I usually work in the archives,” she blushes, her eyes everywhere but on him., “but when I was approached about—this—it was so much money. I thought I could do it—for my mom. I didn’t tell them that I’ve never—that I’m...” If possible, her cheeks redden even more, the flush creeping down her neck and across the swell of her full, soft breasts. “I’m sorry,” she says again, like it’s a nervous tic.</span>
</p><p class="p1">She doesn’t say it is for him. She doesn’t pretend. </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Even still, he’s not sure why he asked; none of it matters. His part in this is the same, no matter why she’s here. Even his body knows it, his cock twitching and hardening with every shift of her weight, with every glimpse of her small pink tongue flicking across her lips.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> <span class="s1">But why?</span> </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s abrupt, the sudden appearance of a choice where he has never recognized one before, maybe because she doesn’t look like the rest, because she didn’t lie to him when lying might have felt safer, or maybe because of the inexplicable quieting in his mind.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Lie down on your side, facing me,” he rumbles, moving her off of him as he tugs off his tunic and slides lower in bed, fully reclining. Her movements are halting, shy, but she complies. He arranges her then, tucking her beneath his large arm, nestling her beneath his chin, encouraging her to drape one of her arms, one of her legs across him. He has one hand at her waist, the other cupping her cheek, thumb brushing its soft curve gently. Her confusion is palpable, but she stays quiet. His confusion is there too, but so complicated it could be mistaken for self-loathing or madness.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She is surprised how much she likes being held like this, wonders if it is just the physical contact or there is something about the improbably big man beneath her, engulfing her. <em>The others felt different,</em>she thinks, <em>they were all wrong.</em></span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I require no more than this tonight,” he whispers into the half-light of the room, feeling her melt into him as the reality of his words sinks in, her heartbeat slowly returning to normal. He is being kind, and he knows he is not kind. No one expects him to be. Even when She calls him to join her, it is with a caveat that he would need to change, that he is monolithic in his morality.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It is nice to be free of all that, if only for a moment. Even if tomorrow he will see that he was only lying to himself.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But tonight—tonight her hair smells like vanilla and lavender and contentment; he buries his nose in it as her fingers tentatively trace patterns across his abs. He asks her about her job, which feels safe enough, and she asks what he was reading when she came in. They speak in hushed voices, like someone might hear.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She falls asleep first, her hand pressed over his heart, her face tilted toward his.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He falls asleep a while later, holding her and feeling not like the Supreme Leader, not like Ben Solo, but like someone he might have been in another life, in a world where his soul was not a battlefield for Light and Dark. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I mean, I just really want to give Kylo Ren a fucking hug. I think that’s where this whole thing comes from.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>She doesn’t come, and he knows she was supposed to. Because he had asked for her.</p><p>And it isn’t that he wants to see her. Not really. She is no one. She is not Her. She is not even an approximation of Her. She’s just someone who works in the archives, someone paid to fuck him, someone he didn’t fuck.</p><p>But he is the Supreme Leader and he called for her and that kriffing means something on this ship.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">The second day, she doesn’t appear. He sits toying with the edge of his gray silky sheets, his tunic folded neatly on the floor beside his bed, the anger slowly building behind his temples; it’s familiar and strong. It brings him back to himself. </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She doesn’t come, and he knows she was supposed to. Because he had asked for her.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And it isn’t that he wants to see her. Not really. She is no one. She is not Her. She is not even an approximation of Her. She’s just someone who works in the archives, someone paid to fuck him, someone he didn’t fuck.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">But he is the Supreme Leader and he called for her and that kriffing </span> <em> <span class="s2">means something</span> </em> <span class="s1"> on this ship.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It means he could find her and make her see him. He’d demand to know why she thought she could refuse him. He’d force her face into the mattress and rip pleasure and pain from her tight cunt, like the others, and when he took everything from her, leaving the streaks of blood on her thighs as evidence, it would be done. He would be the monster she’d heard so much about. She would have a reason to hide from him.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It is a simple thing to find her, to use the Force to push open the door and storm into her quarters, black tunic back on, cape swishing behind him. The Darkness is coursing through him, scalding and powerful and fortifying. It is simple to stop her tongue, to lock her limbs in place.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It is harder to remember the rest of the plan.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She’s in another sleep tank—this one petal pink like her lips, like the soft blush brushing her cheekbones—and she’s sitting at a small desk, strewn with books—real books, not datapads or holobooks, the smell of them earthy and sweet and rare. She smelled of books last night beneath the vanilla and lavender, he realizes. It makes him uncomfortable to remember.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">If he devours these details of her, the splashes of color in the sterile room—an emerald green blanket tossed at the foot of the bed, a deep purple sweater hung on her chair—if he files them away like he’s stocking a ship for a long voyage, it is of no importance. It has nothing to do with the way he loosens his hold on her.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She jerks to her feet, as though she’s been straining to do since he entered,breath leaving her in a rush. Fear and sadness and confusion form a lump in her throat, replacing the choking press of his mind, but her feet move, drawn forward by something she doesn’t recognize and will not name. There is something in the wildness of his eyes, a kind of raw vulnerability, that speaks to her, though; she knows this and trusts it despite all she has been told about this man. She takes another step.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1"> In three strides, he meets her, in a fourth she’s backed against the wall, his arms caging her, his stiff cock straining beneath layers of clothing, aching to be wrapped in the softness and heat and wetness of her. He could let himself have her—just as he’d longed to last night—</span><em><span class="s2">should</span> </em> <span class="s1"> do it to remind himself who he is, to lose himself fully in the raging storm of his soul.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">That was the plan.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Why didn’t you come?” he’s asks without meaning to, hating that he sounds hurt. He isn’t.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">“I—“ she falters, “I thought it was a mistake. We didn’t—</span> <em> <span class="s2">you know</span> </em> <span class="s1">—and I thought—“</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Are they paying you to think?” She winces, and it doesn’t feel as good as it normally would. She remembers the way it felt to lay against the his bare chest, like safety and contentment. She remembers the terror of her throat closing, of limbs that won’t respond to her mind’s urging. She remembers how he’d been so good to her, had not pushed or coerced or taken what they both knew he could take.<em>Complicated. Contradictory. Human.</em> He sees it all in her face, in her mind. His voice is lower, gentler, belongs to someone else, when he speaks again, “Come with me. I require no more of you than last night.” He steps back, extends a large, bare hand.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>The memory of an outstretched palm, long fingers reaching, always reaching for what he couldn’t deserve; the soul-rending pain of being too broken, too wrong, too unworthy to be chosen time and again.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There is no fanfare, no weighing of his worth; she just laces her fingers with his and follows him.<br/></span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">*****</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When he settles her beside him—holding her chest flush with his, both arms pressing her close, his lips in her hair—they talk about the planets they’ve seen and those they would like to see when the fighting is done, when things are quieter for a moment. She wants to take her mother somewhere peaceful away from the crushing weight of the cities. He wants to go somewhere they don’t know him.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">If he’s half-hard when she drifts to sleep—one strap of her top slipping from her shoulder, nose nuzzled just below his ear, her lips just parted—he doesn’t acknowledge it; he just pushes her strap back into place and presses a kiss to her collarbone, before the darkness of dreams claims him as well. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">There is a quiet rhythm to their nights, the ebb and flow of whispered conversation, the tension of want and the acceptance of what is offered. It is never more than gentle caresses, light presses of lips. It is never as much as he wants, he finds.</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">After that second time, he starts closing the bond on his side when she’s there—a needless precaution, since Her barriers never slip—but he has never had anything that is just his before; there’s always been someone in his head too, someone twisting and witnessing and judging. This quiet, building, confusing </span> <span class="s2"> <em>something</em> </span> <span class="s1"> belongs only to them and he finds himself worried that if anyone knew, they would take it from him.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He doesn’t love her—too much of him is carried in someone else, somewhere out there among the stars—but he wants to. Maybe there’s a version of him somewhere who does. This thing isn’t love, but it still feels real, still feels important.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">This thing takes root, blooms in all that is unspoken between them.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">If he sleeps better, if Her silence behind the high smooth wall severing their connection is easier to bear, if he Force-chokes Hux half as often, he doesn’t tell her. If she holds her breath a little every morning as she waits to see if today will be the day he forgets her, if she likes how the callused pads of his fingers sometimes twist braids into her wavy hair, if she can feel fault lines forming within her heart, she does not share this either.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Instead, they learn.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He learns she knows far more history than he does, that she has a warm, throaty laugh that coaxes almost-smiles onto his own lips. He learns that she sprawls when she sleeps, that she speaks four languages fluently—also sometimes when she sleeps—that she is the kind of pragmatist he can almost understand.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s2"> <em>“But don’t you believe in the First Order?”</em> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s2"> <em>She thinks on that: “I believe in history.”</em> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s2"> <em>“That isn’t an answer.”</em> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s2"> <em>“History tells us that power is a pendulum; all things come and go.Whenever the Order’s time is done, power will swing to the people. When that becomes unstable, a new order will seize and centralize power.”</em> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s2"> <em>“Unless the Order lasts.” He likes that he isn’t angry, that this feels like a thought exercise, not an argument.</em> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>She rolls her eyes, smiles into his chest: “Tell that to the Empire.”</em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She learns that his sullen moods lift when she asks him about other worlds, that he will begin by tersely rattling off statics of population size, climate, and indigenous fauna, but cannot resist sharing an anecdote about the time his speeder malfunctioned in this forest or launching into a description of the cuisine of that particular culture. She learns that the Supreme Leader is a cuddler, wraps himself around her like a vine every night, huffs angrily in his sleep if she tries to extricate herself. She learns that nightmares are his constant companions. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> <span class="s2">“No—no—don’t leave—don’t leave me,” the broken sobs fill the quiet. Arms flail—reaching, always reaching.</span> </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> <span class="s2">“No one is leaving you,” she whispers, pulling him snuggly against her chest, carding her hands through his sleep-ravaged hair. “No, She’s going to stay with you. She takes your hand in Hers. She stays.”</span> </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> <span class="s2">She says it over and over until she feels his thick shoulder muscles unknot, until his breathing evens. </span> </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They could go on like this—all gentleness and companionship, two people bringing each other something like peace, something like comfort.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But this thing between them is blooming, and it pricks at their comfort like a thorn. </span>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">*****</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She leaves one morning, eyes soft with sleep, cheeks marked from his pillow, and he finds himself rock hard from just the soft brush off her breasts against him as he pressed a kiss to her forehead in parting.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He wants her. All of her. More than these quiet moments. He wants parts no one else has had. Parts that would make her blush and squirm and keen to give him. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He could take what he wants, has been trained to take and take until there is nothing left. He has spent years taking, thrusting everything into the void he carries inside, trying to fill the emptiness. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But it has never worked—this grasping hunger—and so he wonders if there might be another way. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">In the moments between interminable meetings and training sessions with his Knights, in the moments when she’s asleep in his arms and when he waits for her to arrive at his door, in every moment in between—he wonders if there is a way she might ever give herself to him freely, if she could ever want that. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He doesn’t understand people, this he recognizes.Every time he thought he did, he has been wrong and it has broken him in ways big and small. What he understands is reading bodies in combat, plotting battle strategies. So that is how he proceeds in his campaign. </span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">He watches her body, studies her. He thinks she might say yes. It is in the way she sometimes presses her thighs together when he ghosts a fingernail up the column of her throat, the way her pulse pounds when she accidentally brushes against the solid length of him. It’s in the way her eyes track to his mouth and the blush that kisses her cheeks when he catches her looking. He could search her mind—the answer would be there, but she is so honest, answers every question he asks, this would feel like a betrayal. He is trying to let her have her thoughts, her secrets. It is new and it makes him hungry for every secret her body gives away. And he thinks it whispers </span> <span class="s2"><em>yes</em>.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The second part is harder, requires subtle inquiries and secretive credit transfers. It requires patience and discretion, but when it is done, he knows it is right. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Then he waits.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">*****</span>
</p><p class="p1">The next night something is different from the moment she enters, her lips pinched into a hard line, her small, soft body rigid with tension.</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Leaning back against his headboard, he tries to look relaxed, innocent even, but those words have never been used to describe him and he manages only a kind of stony anticipation. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Her debts are gone,” she says, the question hanging between them unspoken, “every credit. Plus a significant sum deposited into her account.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“That is good news,” he tries to reply evenly, not bothering with the pretense of asking who she’s referring to. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Was it you?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She knows, but he answers anyway, watching her warily, “Yes.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">If he thinks the tense muscles of her shoulders will relax at this, that she will sigh and throw herself into his arms, he’s wrong; if anything she looks even more like cornered prey, like her next move will be running or raking her claws over him. “Thank you,” she whispers, gray eyes narrowed, “but why?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“So you don’t have to do this if you don’t want—so your decisions can be about what you want.” This is his chance to back out, but the soldier in him marches on, will not retreat. “So that you can leave, or you can stay and things can be as they always are.” He takes a deep breath, “Or you can stay and—and things can be different. But whatever you do, I wanted it to be a real choice.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Her heart is beating even faster now, her thoughts stuck on a single word: “Different?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You could let me touch you. I—I want you to let me touch all of you.”He feels like he is baring his throat to an enemy, stripped of all armor. He waits for the blow. He has been taught by experience that this is when the pain starts. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You don’t love me.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s not a question, so he doesn’t deny it. Instead, he tells her the truth: “If I could choose, I would love you.” The words are bittersweet.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She nods. “And if I leave now?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Then I would miss you; I would want you. But I would understand.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She can see how he is trying, that none of the others were spoken to so carefully, that he had not gone to such lengths to offer them a choice. She sees how much it costs him to bare himself this way, this man who covers himself with masks and cloaks and so much darkness. He has been nothing she was warned about, nothing he claimed to be, as though even that is a mask he hides behind. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Her feet carry her across the room to his side. Tipping his head back, he watches her with his beautifully intense eyes, his hands gripping the bedsheets at his sides. She studies his lips, thinks that the strange combination of its unyielding line and improbable softness might be a perfect metaphor for him. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">If she says yes, he will break her heart someday—that inevitable someday when he chooses Her and leaves. But if she says no, her heart will break today at being denied his touch and his tense half-smiles and his strangely gentle company. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Slowly, her eyes locked on his, she moves, slides onto his lap, straddling his thick thighs, marveling at the way his lips part as he watches her, at the feel of his big fingers gripping her hips to steady her, their bruising strength making her ache for <em>more</em>. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I won’t know what to do,” she whispers against his lips.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">One hand comes up to grip the side of her face, it’s heat scalding her. “I’ll teach you.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It has been years since he has gone this slow, if he ever has. All he can remember is the blur of tanned skin, hazel eyes, and long, lean, muscular limbs, a gauntlet to be run as quickly as possible. Hard. Fast. Done before his body could realize that this wasn’t Her he was fucking into.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But this is a stroll.It’s a kriffing dance. The newness makes him feel like a gangly teenager again, all hormones and hands.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He wants to touch every part of her, wants to run his tongue over every hill and valley, memorize everything about this woman who is giving him a glimpse of another life, a taste of the happiness he is only renting.<br/></span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">For the first time, he wants—needs—to make it good for her.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">She’s straddling his lap, so small that she still has to look up slightly to meet his eyes even from that perch. And in those eyes, a trust that is without condition or reservation, a desire for him—not some dead version of him, not the monster he’s reputed to be, but the man who whispered about everything and nothing as they held each other is his bed. She trusts </span> <em> <span class="s2">him</span> </em> <span class="s1">.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s unearned, he knows, but he wants to be worthy of it, of her. He has never felt worthy of anything, really, has been taught again and again how he continually disappoints, and he isn’t sure how to even begin.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">So he starts small, his lips brushing the flat of her collarbone. His tongue flicks out, tastes the soft, sweet skin there.Teeth graze, nibble, and a quiet </span> <span class="s2"><em>hmm</em> </span> <span class="s1">in her throat makes him involuntarily rock his hips against hers, his straining cock throbbing at how close it is to where it belongs, growing even harder at this most basic contact.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">His fingers find the hem of her shirt, dip beneath it, trace across her stomach, even as he buries his face in her neck, kissing and nipping his way up the column of her throat. He always thought he was monstrous, built only for pain and violence, but his hands wrap around her so deliciously, thumbs reaching up to stroke the undersides of her full, round breasts, making her arch into him, making her fingers dig into the thick muscles of his shoulders, making her tremble, and he wonders what else this body of his is capable of. His hands leave her and she makes a tiny noise of displeasure that tugs at the corners of his lips, as he pulls her top over her head, baring her to him; he doesn’t make her wait, even though she is so sweet, so soft and he wishes he could savor the way her breasts rise and fall with each ragged breath—no, he returns his hands to her immediately, adding his mouth, sucking and kneading and teasing until she is flushed and panting, until he can feel the last bit of her hesitance evaporate.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Slowly, carefully, she rubs her center against him, up and down the length of his clothed erection. Her eyes flutter closed, lips parting at the pressure just </span> <em> <span class="s2">there</span> </em> <span class="s1">, the delicious friction right where she suddenly feels so empty.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She wonders how she never realized she was so very empty.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">The rubbing somehow both helps and makes it infinitely worse at the same time. She aches. She burns. She is going to die of this beautiful torture, these sensations that are </span> <em> <span class="s2">so much</span> </em> <span class="s1"> and </span> <em> <span class="s2">not enough</span> </em> <span class="s1"> and </span> <em> <span class="s2">everything</span> </em> <span class="s1">. But she keeps moving, desperate to have more of him, to feel every part of him as close as she can get.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">He moans, low and rough, against her breast—a part of her she never thought much of, a part of her she will never stop thinking of—and slides his hands to her hips, pressing down while grinding up into her. </span> <span class="s2"><em>So good</em>. </span> <span class="s1">She can feel the tightening somewhere low in her abdomen, a hot, wildness on the horizon. </span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When their mouths meet, it is that wildness that he tastes, that desperation that makes him push his tongue into her mouth, its warm, wet heat so alien to her, so perfect for her.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She groans his name against his mouth and he thinks he could come just like this—layers between them, a clash of tongues, the press of her warm heat, her sweet voice calling to some part of him he is only just meeting.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But he doesn’t want that. Not yet.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Someday he will not be here and she will be in someone else’s bed, her lips soundlessly forming another name. The idea makes him want to mark every part of her, fill her so full that there will always be a part of him in her. He wants this to mean something to her, the way it is coming to mean something to him.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It isn’t fair. It isn’t kind.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But no one has ever accused him of being either.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And so she is not sure how she ends up on her back, his massive arms caging her against the mattress, his broad, pale chest the ceiling of her world, but she does. He pulls his mouth away from hers and his eyes are dark, pupils blown wide; they ask a question that she doesn’t understand, but her head is nodding anyway. She wants everything he will give her. She needs it.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Her breath stops when his lips move to her skin again. They are hungry and move with a kind of single-minded determination from the pulse point of her neck to her oversensitive nipple, from the well of her belly button to the waistband of her sleep shorts. Hands slide up and down the smooth length of her inner thighs, nails dragging shivers and soft moans from her, every time coming closer and closer to their apex, to where the emptiness is screaming for his touch, for him.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">He tugs, gently, on the shorts and she lifts her hips to help, even as she presses her thighs together in embarrassment at having his face so close to </span> <em> <span class="s2">there</span> </em> <span class="s1">. She knows people do this, that it is supposed to feel good, but she is afraid anyway. It is a fear without a definition or a name, and it mingles with the longing that suffuses every inch of her, a heady and confusing cocktail.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">His eyes move between where her thighs meet and her face, as he gently places his hands on her knees and tugs almost imperceptibly. “Let me,” he whispers, “let me taste you.” His voice is drenched with want, and that need calls to something deep inside of her, eases some of the anxiety.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Her legs relax, open to him, and he doesn’t give her a moment to regret it, bending to lick a hot stripe up her slit. “So sweet—so good,” he murmurs against her skin, parting her folds with one long finger while his tongue flicks against her clit. He has never done this before, but he knows none of the other women would have tasted like this—sweet and tangy and earthy—knows none of the other women would have keened so prettily as he sucked their pink nub into his mouth, cheeks hollowing. He does it over and over again just to hear how she’s coming apart under his tongue, to feel how her body tenses and arches as he finds new ways to explore this part of her. He’s so hard, so desperate for friction that he ruts against the bed as he presses his middle finger into the tight, velvety, wet heat of her core, feeling the way her walls clench and shiver at the intrusion. She is building to something, and he chases it like a man possessed, losing himself in her.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She looks down and he’s devouring her, her slick glistening on his nose, on his lips and chin. The sight of his dark waves moving between her legs, the feel of his finger—now fingers—stroking deep inside her, curving to rub against something that steals her breath and makes her vision blur; it’s making everything clench tighter and tighter, like she’s spiraling in ever smaller circles, straining toward something just out of reach.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She twists her fingers into his hair, tugs him closer, and he hums his approval, the vibrations singing through the bundle of nerves he’s rolling between his lips, pushing her over the edge as wave after wave of blinding orgasm rolls through her. It surges on and on, and she’s gasping his name like it’s something beautiful and worthy and real.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">He’s losing himself in the ecstasy of her, lapping at her like he can catch every drop of sweetness, stroking her walls as they squeeze and flutter around his fingers, until she’s quieting, muscles relaxing. Then he’s stripping his pants off, kissing his way up her sated, pliant body, his heavy cock aching with every brush against her, needing </span> <span class="s2">more </span> <span class="s1">and </span> <span class="s2"> <em>closer</em> </span> <span class="s1"> and </span> <em> <span class="s2">inside</span> <span class="s1">.</span> </em></p><p class="p1"><em> <span class="s2">So lovely. So good</span> </em> <span class="s1">. He wants to sink into her, bury himself in her. The head of his cock nudges against her opening as he claims her mouth with his own. </span> <span class="s2"><em>So good. So close</em>.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She tastes herself on his tongue, and it reignites the ache between her thighs, the flames somehow hotter than before, searing her nerve endings. She rolls her hips against him, chasing the sensation of skin on overstimulated skin, the blunt press of him making her shiver.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">His eyes are near black as he looks down at her, and all she can see in them is herself. For a moment there is no one else lurking in their depths. It is just them.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He moves with agonizing slowness, easing into her tightness. He doesn’t want to hurt her, doesn’t think he could bear it; he does nothing but inflict pain, but he is learning with her that it doesn’t have to be that way. So he fills her inch by inch, lips parted, breath ragged. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She’s being split open. She’d known he’d be big, had maybe even felt hints of how big in moments when they’d laid entwined together in the darkness. But this is more than she’d imagined, more than seems possible. When she looks down, already feeling so full, so stretched, she sees he’s only halfway inside, realizes her hand wouldn’t be able to fully wrap around the breadth of him. Her heart pounds and she tenses, panic setting in: he’s too much, she’ll never take him all.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He must see it in her face, in the way her gray eyes go wide, the way her mouth opens and closes wordlessly. Because his mouth finds her ear, teeth scraping its sensitive shell as he murmurs how lovely, good, perfect she is, how warm, tight, amazing she feels around him. His hand slips between them, one callused fingertip circling her clit slowly, the movement unclenching her inner walls, even as it begins coiling that perfect tension deep inside her again.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Full, so full, her legs wrap around his waist as he finally buries himself completely within her. It should be too much—maybe it is—but some ancient part of her relishes the way pain and pleasure blend together and create something new, something she will never have enough of. With every circle of his finger, her walls mold to to him, until she knows he could move without hurting her, needs him to move more desperately than she could have imagined.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She kisses the line between his brows, the tense place where his jaw works,and she rocks her hips just slightly, feeling the stretch and slide of him. He moves to meet her, thrusting gently into her, a long, low groan leaving his lips at how her body grips him. It shouldn’t feel this good; there’s no reason it should be melting her bones like this. But it is everything. They are everything.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They move together, slowly at first, then with intensifying need. His fingertips bruise her hips as though she might disappear if he didn’t hold her there.Her nails bite into the skin on his back, a battle scar he’ll treasure.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">His cracked, gasping voice moans her name as she licks her way up his corded neck, writhing against him, reveling in the way his snapping hips fill the room with the slap of skin on skin and the indecent sounds of her wet arousal. With each thrust he moves deeper and deeper, bumping against a hidden place that is pain and pleasure, that makes her cry out over and over, electric shocks suffusing every nerve ending. He sucks her nipple into his mouth, pinching and flicking its twin, and her toes curl, every muscle going rigid as he pumps into her in an increasingly erratic rhythm. When her orgasm crests over, a tidal wave of searing bliss, her walls spasm, like she can pull him even further within her, and he jerks, filling her with hot ropes of his spend over and over.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She thinks this must be like when a galaxy is born, the blur of bright and heat and unnameable wonder. She wants it to remake her, feels a primal urge to mark and be marked.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">He thinks this must be what it’s like to return to the Force, every connection in his body singing with the blinding pleasure of </span> <span class="s2"><em>yes</em> </span> <span class="s1">and </span> <span class="s2"> <em>peace</em> </span> <span class="s1"> and </span> <span class="s2"> <em>home</em> </span> <span class="s1">.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">*****</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">This fragile thing is blooming in the dark, where it will always stay, its vines wrapping around their bare, sweat-soaked bodies. It will be gone someday, but its thorns will leave invisible scars, its remembered beauty will be carried within them.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">For now it is enough that they have each other, this moment. They do not think of tomorrow. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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